


Free Verse

by NorroenDyrd



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Domestic, Dorks in Love, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Mage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Poetic, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 08:37:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15792954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorroenDyrd/pseuds/NorroenDyrd
Summary: Acting on the advice of her (unspecified) mage lover, Cassandra writes her very first poem.





	Free Verse

They spend the night in her quarters this time, wrapped in a warm, vaguely mumbling bundle of limbs in the snug corner formed by the slanting roof atop the armoury. She wakes up first - she usually does, especially when, rescued valiantly by her from yet another all-nighter over his magical research, he falls into such a deep sleep that takes a few scrunched-up blinks to remember what Skyhold is and why he has wound up here. When he opens his eyes, emerging from the Fade into an orange haze that has been poured into the room by the happy, vibrant sunrise, she is already perched on that precariously teetering stool that apparently counts as ‘furnishings’.  
  
Her back is hunched so badly that his ribs begin to hurt just from looking at her; her knees are almost rammed into her chin; one of her bare feet is tapping against the wooden floor with could be either impatience or anger; and her quill is ripping into paper like a phoenix’s beak into the flesh of some hapless antelope.  
  
‘If you need help with anything…’ he murmurs drowsily as he stretches himself, 'You know you can ask for it. It will not be… failure on your part’.  
  
He yawns, shutting his eyes for a moment, and smacks his lips with a small grimace. Damn morning breath. He needs to wash up first thing.  
  
Since she has not given a reply other than an 'Ugh’ through her teeth - which, as he hopes, was directed at the paper, not him - he decides to lighten things up with a casual jest.  
  
'This goes both for reports and love poems,’ he lets slip casually on his way out, his assorted clothing floating after him in a sizzling green telekinetic string.  
  
They risk flapping down to the floor, though, because her reaction to his teasing is far more vehement than he anticipated, making him stumble on the spot in astonishment.  
  
'What?! No! No, no!’ she cries out, whirling from her stool in a tremendous panicked leap that would have resulted in a painful bump against the ceiling had he not woken up just enough to conjure a crown-like barrier over the top of her head with one hand, while the other is still busy casting telekinesis on his clothes.  
  
'I couldn’t! Poetry requires grace and finesse and… I don’t have it in me! Finding words that rhyme, fitting them into phrases that don’t come off stilted… It’s far beyond me…’  
  
While she began her tirade as a loud, crammed stream of words, she finishes it slowly and not quite audibly, her head bowed down and her voice melting off into nothing just like the green magic sparks that crown her still messy hair.  
  
He regards her for a moment, washed in orange sunlight, flushed and barefooted, with ink-splattered papers clutched to her chest - and beautiful. Utterly beautiful. Just as she is when they fight side by side, her eyes dark and hard, a smear of bandit blood highlighting her perfect cheekbones; just as she is when they sneak out of Skyhold on their evening walks, glowing in the moonlight with a quiet joy, her gaze reflecting the brilliant shimmer of the sky. Just as she is - always. Every single moment. And if he tried putting how he feels about each of those moments into words, it would be poetry. Regardless of whether or not each line ended in a given sequence of syllables. She would make it poetry.  
  
'It doesn’t have to rhyme, you know,’ he says, with a flicker of a coy smile. 'You just need to focus in your emotions. Which we both know you have aplenty. All of them profound and inspiring. Don’t sell yourself short, my love’.  
  
She makes a faint noise when he addresses her like that, as though she were suddenly out of breath; he reassures her with another smile and an air kiss (damn morning breath), and finally leaves to bathe.  
  
And, unbeknownst to him, the moment she is left alone, she folds herself up into a cross-legged pose on her bedroll, still warm where they lay together, and jots down in a few swift flourishes,  
  
'I count the days, as the shadows tilt  
  
And the lilac sky suddenly melts to red and black and blue,  
  
I count the days, and make up foolish anniversaries.  
  
  
Of that time when you first used my name, and my heart stopped  
  
At hearing it spoken in your voice.  
  
Of that time when you first embraced me, unthinking, in the haze of joy,  
  
And I loathed letting go.  
  
Of that time when I lingered, looking in your eyes,  
  
And realized you had tiny specks of gold  
  
Around your pupils.  
  
  
I make up foolish anniversaries,  
  
Which my mind knows are only good for laughing at -  
  
And yet my heart  
  
Still longs for more’.


End file.
